Psychology  Game on? Video-game ownership may interfere with young boys' academic functioning(Association for Psychological Science) According to new findings, owning a video-game system may hamper academic development in some children. Boys who received a video-game system immediately had significantly lower reading and writing scores after four months than boys receiving a video-game system at the end of the experiment. Further analysis revealed that the time spent playing video games may link the relationship between owning a video-game system and reading and writing scores. |
Ecology  Conservationists urge treaty panel to reject ivory sale by Tanzania, Zambia(University of Washington) An international team of conservationists, writing in Science, says relaxing a current moratorium on ivory sales to allow one-time sales by Zambia and Tanzania could lead to increased slaughter of elephants for their ivory throughout Africa. |
Stars  Secret of the Civil War: UC historian uncovers lost history of 'tri-racial army' experiment(University of Cincinnati) Blacks, whites and Indians all fought together as one, winning the key battle of the Civil War in Indian Territory in 1863 by routing a Confederate force twice their size. The details are revealed in a new book by UC Professor of History Mark Lause. |
Genetics  Musk ox population decline due to climate, not to humans, study finds(Penn State) Scientists have discovered that the drastic decline in Arctic musk ox populations that began roughly 12,000 years ago was due to a warming climate rather than to human hunting. The research is the first study to use ancient musk ox DNA collected from across the animal's former geographic range to test for human impacts on musk ox populations. |
Chemistry  The smell of salt air, a mile high and 900 miles inland(University of Washington) In a surprise with implications for air quality, researchers have found thatchemistry involving airborne chloride, thought to be restricted to seaspray, occurs at similar rates in air above Boulder, Colo., nearly 900 milesaway from any ocean. |
